Trinamool to go it alone if Congress fails to ally

Kolkata, Jan 19 (IANS) West Bengal’s main opposition party Trinamool Congress’ supremo Mamata Banerjee Monday said her party would go it alone in the upcoming general elections if the Congress shies away from forging an alliance with it.”Enough is enough. If you (Congress) comem that’s good; or else we will not be sad to go alone. We don’t want the anti-Left Front vote to get divided in Bengal. But we will go to vote anyway,” Banerjee said, addressing a rally at Metro Channel in the city.

The Left Front, led by the communists, have been holding on to power in the state for the last 31 years.

Trinamool cannot wait indefinitely for any party to form alliance with it, she said, adding: “We can’t keep this hanging indefinitely.”

Banerjee’s comments came two days after senior Congress leader and External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee rubbished her anti-land acquisition movement, and said such agitations could boomerang if the Trinamool came to power.

“We are against forcible acquisition of land. We have set an example by our Singur agitation. The world is looking at our agitation,” he said.

Trinamool’s stained agitation forced Tata Motors to relocate the world’s lowest priced car project from the state’s Singur to Sanand in Gujarat late last year.

Training her guns on Left Front major Communist Party of India-Marxist, she said it has done nothing towards industrialisation of the state.

She also questioned the progress of JSW Bengal’s ongoing 10 million tonne steel plant project at Salboni.

Banerjee met state chief electoral officer Debashish Sen during the day and complained that electronic voting machines (EVM) were being tampered with to favour the ruling Left Front and demanded use of ballot boxes for voting.

Sen later said it was not possible to tamper with EVM. “It has a code language and there is no scope of meddling with it and it is not possible to keep ballot boxes for one state.”